Algae and Snow

My next historical romance, Lin Yu, is open for advance follows.

When the main story ended, I held an 80%/20-ticket giveaway. Now that the whole story is complete, I'm holding a 100%/20-ticket giveaway for everyone who bought the entire story. I'll send an extra little red envelope to familiar names in the backend. Thanks for your support.

The entire story is being revised. I'll be fixing errors and plot holes.

[The heroine gets dumped, then the hero suffers through a long quest to win her back. No changing the male lead.]

[Two endings, readers choose: the heroine can leave or stay.]

*Ending One: The heroine leaves the hero and travels with her friends, journeying through many lands and becoming a female teacher who teaches girls to read and write. She never looks back. | Ending Two: The heroine stays with the hero, and they work together to build up the impoverished countryside.

(The cover is a custom design based on a commercially licensed character model.)

"I won't give it another thought, so don't give it another thought either. Could you give the heart you once gave me to someone else?"

At a flower-viewing banquet,

Zhong Zaoxue fell for the young top-scorer who rode past her at first sight.

The top-scorer was named Qi Qinghe. He had an elegant and handsome appearance, but was always cold and indifferent, with not a trace of tenderness in him.

Though Zhong Zaoxue felt regret, she thought that spending her life with the man she loved would still make it worthwhile.

Until a divorce letter was thrown in front of her.

In a street market, the woman once famed as the most beautiful in the capital fell to her knees in the rain and wept until her voice went hoarse, as helpless as a cornered beast.

As he left, he stopped.

At the desperate, hopeful look in her eyes, as if she were a drowning person clutching at a lifeline, he turned his head slightly.

He said, "I once thought you were a woman of noble character, loyal and true... I suppose I was mistaken. I hope you get your wish, climb to the top, and become the favored concubine of the Prince of Xiling for the rest of your life."

The top-scorer, whose beauty had once captivated her at a glance, left without the slightest reluctance. His cold indifference left her with nothing but a frigid, utterly lifeless back.

A year later, the Prince of Xiling died.

Qi Qinghe, now a Censor-in-Chief, arrived at the dungeon to take charge of the case.

What surprised him was this:

Among the condemned prisoners held for the attempted assassination of a prince, Zhong Zaoxue raised her head and turned to face him. Even in prison, she still looked as breathtakingly beautiful as when they first met, famed throughout the capital.

Every frown and smile of hers could still captivate the soul.

But the eyes she turned toward him no longer held any love or tenderness.

*

The thing Qi Qinghe regretted most in his life was divorcing his wife.

Perhaps even he didn't realize it.

He began to regret it on the very first day after he divorced her.

He had always been cold and indifferent, knew nothing of love, and watched the world with reason and clear eyes. He refused to admit that even if Zhong Zaoxue had truly betrayed him, a single smile and a loving whisper from her would have been enough to make him let bygones be bygones.

"The moment I wrote the first character of the divorce letter, I had already begun to regret it... But I couldn't accept how pathetic and humiliated I felt..."

As the truth behind the Prince of Xiling's death came to light and the past came rushing back, Qi Qinghe learned the reason behind it all. Carrying Zhong Zaoxue, unconscious and poisoned, he charged into the rain, his eyes bloodshot, searching Lin'an City for a renowned doctor.

He held her tightly in his arms, trying to warm her cold body with his own, little by little.

"After that, I left Lin'an, left the city where you were. Every single day, every moment, I regretted it."

"Even now, I regret that I never learned to treat you with even a little tenderness..."

"Would we still have ended up here if I had?"

He removed his third-rank Censor's hat and staked everything he had to clear her name. When the shocking evidence and the past were laid before him, he was the one who went mad.

The elegant, handsome top-scorer who had once captivated her at a glance was gone.

"If there's truly no way to overturn this case, then I'll walk this road to the underworld with you."

Zhong Zaoxue, still lying sick in bed, knocked away the bowl of medicinal broth he'd spent all night preparing. Looking at him, she said word by word, "If you came with me on this road to the underworld, I wouldn't even be able to rest in peace after I died."

Historical romance open for advance follows: Lin Yu

The coroners gathered together to talk about the first body they'd examined when they joined the local yamen. Every one of them remembered the experience with a shudder.

"I still remember it. I couldn't sleep for days afterward."

"Couldn't sleep? I couldn't even eat."

"Exactly. I threw up for days and felt dizzy the whole time."

The coroners were chatting away, but one petite female coroner sat quietly off to the side, lost in thought. An older colleague nudged her with an elbow and asked curiously, "Yu'er, what about you?"

Shan Yu'er came back to herself and gave a faint smile. "...I wasn't frightened."

"Really?"

"Mm. Because it was the person I loved most."

The first body she examined belonged to the person who had once brightened her youth.

The person she had loved all her life.

Both leads are reborn, both find redemption, they dote on each other, and everyone gets a happy ending.

Theme: Treat the people around you kindly.